Head Coach Ben Olsen
Overall thoughts…
I was encouraged for most of the game. They did everything I asked them, and we fell a little short with the difficult part, and that was to score the goal. To a man, I thought everyone had good performances, gave us everything and went out in the right way.
On what was missing offensively…
I didn’t think we created enough in the first game, but again, I think this game here, it was just a matter of a little bit of quality in the final third and making the play that matters, whether it’s on a set piece, or a few times, maybe it’s not shooting; maybe it’s giving the extra pass. Overall, I’m extremely proud. That’s as good as we’ve played here, and I thought it was a good night; we just fell short with the goal.
On what to address in the offseason, what was missing…
Sean Franklin, Chris Pontius, Chris Korb, Davy Arnaud. Those guys would’ve all helped tonight in some capacity. We’ll evaluate our team afterwards, but for example, I had a center back playing right back. Those guys gave me everything today, they gave the fans everything today, and they followed our game plan to a tee. You can follow game plans, and you can frustrate the other team, but in the end you’ve got to score the goal. In the end, a little lack of quality there can cost you a series.
On losing two years in a row in the playoffs to New York…
It doesn’t matter who you lose to; it stings. I’m extremely proud of the guys, not only how they handled tonight but the entire year. It hasn’t been an easy year, and we’ve had to call on everybody. That, maybe more than anything, makes me proud of this group, that everyone’s played a part of this over the course of this season. Again, I’m just proud. I’m disappointed, and it stings, but it doesn’t matter who you lose to; it always hurts.
On the big picture with the current team…
I guess it’s a fair question. I always believe that once you get into the playoffs, you can get knocked out as easily as you can go to the final with the right break, or someone getting hot, or with the right health, the right momentum. There’s so much that plays into the MLS playoffs. The effort was there tonight with this group; it was just a little lack of quality. Is this who we are? Are we peaked out? I don’t know. It’s a fair question and something we’ll evaluate.
On being one shot away…
The game plan against New York is not to go get 15 shots on goal. It’s not going to happen, but we’re going to get a few looks in each half, and we’ve got to do well with them. In the end, those situations came about enough in this game to win the game. But we didn’t make that happen. Again, that quality in the final third just wasn’t there. They worked their tails off. I think we had a little bit of tired legs down the stretch because of the way we played them and end up defending a little bit. But again, I’m happy with the way they went about the game. We were unlucky not to get a goal.
